Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy – Hot Docs 2021

By Sean Patrick Kelly

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The substance-use crisis and drug-poisoning epidemic among the Kainai First Nation in southern Alberta is explored in Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy. Since 2014, the opioid crisis has cost hundreds of lives to members of the Kainai First Nation, which is on top of the ongoing issue of alcoholism and other substance abuse crises. Filmmaker Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers documents the efforts of the Kainai First Nation to contain the crisis, which includes the efforts of her mother Dr. Esther Tailfeathers, one of the few medical doctors on the reserve.

In Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy director Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers uses the current opioid crisis to comment on substance abuse has been an ongoing issue first indigenous communities in Canada, dating all the way back to colonialism. The film also champions the use of Supervised Consumption Sites, which in some ways are better than abstinence in the treatment of addiction, despite them having the stigma of just “substituting one drug for another.”

Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy is very hard to watch the documentary at times since it really hammers home the bitter reality that many members of first nation's communities have turned to substance abuse, as a result of how the country treated them, whether it be sending them to residential schools or other forms of mistreatment. As per the title of the film, Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy is structured so you feel empathy for the members of the Kainai First Nation and the hardships they have to go through.

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